Share this:

It was nearly melted down into medallions, has been attacked with a sledgehammer by a chanting Maori activist, stirred bitter legal battles, was said to have been pimped out for weddings and now travels in a custom-designed Louis Vuitton trunk.

The America’s Cup, the oldest trophy in international sports and sailing’s greatest prize, helped boost spirits during the Great Depression, has been feted in ticker-tape parades, made grown men cry and reshaped winning nations. The Cup even has her own – yes, the trophy is a she – frequent-flier number for travel (first class only) and a handler known to insiders as “The Trophy Wife.”

“I hate the word icon, but it is an icon for our sport,” said Bob Fisher, author of several books on the America’s Cup, including his most recent, “Sailing on the Edge.” “It’s about the honor and glory of winning it.”

The America’s Cup, first awarded in 1851, is again up for grabs, as defender Oracle Team USA squares off on the undulating racetrack of San Francisco Bay against challenger Emirates Team New Zealand starting Saturday. The contest is a best of 17-race series, and the victor gets the coveted silver ewer and the right to shape the next defense.

There may be more elegant silver and nickel trophies in professional sports, including the men’s championship trophy at Wimbledon. There may be more venerated trophies, including the Stanley Cup. There are definitely bigger trophies, namely the Borg-Warner (Indy 500), which weighs around 153 pounds and stands 5 feet, 4 inches. And there are flimsier trophies, including the famed yellow jersey of the Tour de France.

“The Cup is about the pursuit of excellence,” said Tom Ehman, who has been involved in the America’s Cup for 33 years, and is now director of external affairs for the America’s Cup. “It’s not only the oldest trophy in sport, but the most difficult to win. It’s a test of art and science, technology and teamwork, management and leadership. It’s a game of life.”

Presented by Queen Victoria

Ehman, also vice commodore of the Golden Gate Yacht Club, only the sixth defender of the Cup in its history, added, “It subjects people to enormous pressure and tests the personal limits of all of us. For me personally, it’s about working with a bunch of very smart, creative, self-motivated people from all over the world, and all walks of life, and striving for excellence in all areas. And there is no second. When it’s over, you never know if you’ll get to do it again.”

Only four nations in the regatta’s history have won the trophy, handed out for the first time in August 1851 by England’s Queen Victoria. The race, 53 miles around the Isle of Wight, began on the morning of Friday, Aug. 22, and involved one American yacht and 15 British boats.

The victorious American team – with its schooner named America – was handed a bottomless silver ewer weighing 134 ounces and standing 27 inches high, purchased from Robert Garrard, the royal jeweler, in 1848 and presented to the Royal Yacht Squadron. The silver ewer was wrongly inscribed – and remains so today – the “100 Guinea Cup” by the Americans, who confused guineas with pounds (100 guineas would have been 105 pounds).

It also was mistakenly referred to in the early days as “The Queen’s Cup.” When the Cup was returned to the New York Yacht Club after the 1851 victory, there was talk of melting it down to make medallions for the winning crew members to wear around their necks. It was saved from that fate and presented to the New York Yacht Club as a perpetual challenge trophy.

In 1895, an estimated 65,000 people watched the 10th America’s Cup competition from boats off New York City, more than watched the Temple Cup – the postseason championship series in baseball’s National League – that year.

The stories of those who have pursued sailing’s Holy Grail are the stuff of lore. The Irish tea and grocery store magnate Sir Thomas Lipton caught “Cup fever” and tried to win the race five times over three decades, from 1899 to 1930, and never won. He called the trophy the “Auld Mug,” a nickname that stuck, and the always-upbeat Lipton was given a trophy fashioned by Tiffany’s with the inscription, “The Winningest Loser.”

Casual treatment

Bob Fisher chuckled recalling the days when the America’s Cup trophy was handled more casually.

“I remember in 1980, I went to New York to film the trophy for a show I was doing, and we went into the model room of the New York Yacht Club,” Fisher said. “When we looked into the room, it wasn’t there. I turned to the house manager and said, ‘We’ve come 3,000 miles to film this.’ I was told the whole place was being refurbished, and that the trophy was in the bank, but he could retrieve it.”

Fisher, standing on the balcony of the club, spotted “the club’s manager walking down 44th Street, just swinging the trophy along, like any old piece of tin.”

The Australian skipper John Bertrand snatched the trophy away from the New York Yacht Club in a dramatic, down-to-the-wire victory in 1983. The New York club had held the Cup for 132 years, the longest winning streak in international sports. Bertrand described his quest as a “higher calling, a stirring within, something as old as human life.” (Dennis Conner won it back in 1987.)

Bill Koch, the billionaire businessman, spent $68 million to win the 1992 campaign with America{+3}. Koch called the race “the most ruthless sporting contest I have ever seen.” When Koch won, he dived off the bow of his yacht, climbed up to the deck of the San Diego yacht club, and hoisted the trophy above him before the cheering masses.

In 1997, the trophy, won by New Zealand in 1995, was bashed by a Maori who attacked the Cup apparently as a symbol of white imperialism. The trophy was rebuilt by Garrard in England.

Today, the Cup’s security and schedule are managed by Elizabeth Murphy, an executive producer of special events and programs at Oracle Corp. After Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and his Oracle racing team – sponsored by the Golden Gate Yacht Club in San Francisco – won the 33rd America’s Cup in Valencia, Spain, in February 2010, Murphy found herself in a meeting to figure out how to welcome the team home and launch a national tour.

“Little did I know that from that moment on, I would be the ‘Trophy Wife,’ ” Murphy said. She has come to understand that the Cup’s schedule is “not unlike any other celebrity or rock star. She has press conferences, photo shoots, video shoots, sponsor appearances, special events, dinners and the like. But compared to rock stars and celebrities, she never acts up or gets moody. She lives a very privileged life.”

Murphy recalled the nervousness she felt the day she was tasked with getting the Cup engraved before the Oracle Racing team headed to the White House to meet President Obama.

“I was at a silversmith hovering over an 85-year-old engraver for two days while on the phone with Tom Ehman, who was in Spain. We had to make sure the spacing and wording were just right. I was thinking the entire time, ‘I sure hope I do not screw this up with a typo or something.’ But we got it right.”

World traveler

Murphy’s oversight of the Cup has brought many lessons. She has made a study of aircraft configurations, as the Cup doesn’t fit in a standard first-class seat. She knows customs requirements for each country, something that is far more complicated than she’d imagined. And she’s learned a great deal about security. When traveling, the trophy is never left alone and requires two full-time security guards. When asked by gawkers what is in the Louis Vuitton trunk, Murphy sometimes quips: “My ex-husband.”

But in the end, she sees her Trophy Wife role as a great privilege.

“Men, women and children seem to have a love affair with her,” Murphy said. “Sometimes, when we are flying for 12 hours and I’m sitting next to her, I think of where she has been and who she has met and how profound it is that some of the most powerful men in the world have spent what could be billions of dollars (collectively) to win her.”

She also smiles recalling the day she asked a few airlines if she could set up a frequent-flier account. “At first they thought I was crazy, but now I smile every time I get her statements. She has a few thousand points logged.”